Search This Blog

Pages

10 cliches of saas-bahu TV serials

Much has been written about our saas-bahu serials. So I, too, have decided to make my own contribution. Following are some well-know cliches from a typical saas-bahu TV serial:

1) Kya yahi pyaar hain? Earlier, only all Hindi movies were love stories. Now even TV serials try and portray themselves as some great love stories as can also been by some of their posters (as i don't watch them, my only source could be their posters i get to see on railway stations) you get to see pasted all over railway stations. Even a serial like Sanjeevani, which started on a premise of under-study doctors' lives in a hospital and seemed to be different and an intelligent one, ended up being a typical love story with two love birds being torn apart by misunderstandings caused by a vamp.

2) Gory background score: As loud as they are when they talk, their background score is also quite loud. Worse, each character has a unique background score that's assigned to them. So when you see a particular character on screen, his or her pre-determined background score starts to play. Case in point: the vamp Kamolika in Kasauti Zindagi Ki and her 'scheming' or 'villiany' background score.

Further, whenever there is a confrontation between two or more characters or, say, a revelation of some sort (your dead wife of 5 years is actually not dead, but alive!) happening, the clank, clank, clink, bing, bang, slam, dung, whiiisssh and whoooossh background score that starts, is most irritating.

3) Meetings in the drawing room: This one is quite weird. Whenever there is a problem in the family, everyone, yes every family member, descends to the drawing room and starts discussing. Like they have nothing better to do. And thereafter ensues a big debate where everyone passes a remark with the family patriarch like the Dadaji, Babuji or saasji in the centre moderating and observing everyone!

4) Close-ups and camera angles: Whenever a family member gets embroiled in some sort of conflict or controversy, or when a tragedy falls on someone, the camera gets into swinging action. It zooms into the person's face five times; i) from above him/her to bottom, ii) from bottom rising to above the top of his/her head, iii) from right to left, iv) from left to right, and finally, v) zooming right into him/her from the front.

Also, the camera angles keep moving or drooling all directions, much like Santosh Sivans' does in his movies. Problem is that the camera-people of TV serials cannot even do 0.1% as good a job as the great South camera-person and director Sivan does.

5) Lightening: Also during a turmoil, you must hear the sounds of lightening. There's full scale lightening happening, be in rain or shine, summer or winter.

6) Woman or streeshakti: When time comes for one of the woman to set things right (read: to exterminate injustice), suddenly temple bells will start ringing, the woman will be seen seething in anger like an angry Goddess, sounds of lightening can be heard from, I presume, outside the house or wherever she may be at that time, the weather will become windy, her hair will start blowing, eyes will become red in anger and some enough-of-this-atyaachaar type Hindi song start to play.

7) Rs 50 crore Business deals: Yes, all families and everyone in our saas-bahu TV serials are filthy rich who are always into some family business. Neither anyone is poor nor does anyone works for a salary. Alas, nobody knows who is into what type of business. All that happens and keeps happening is that someone or the other from that family keeps signing "contracts" worth Rs 50 crore at least. Nothing less than Rs 50 crore; the amount rises if the TV serial is telecasted in prime time. After all, more people watch the serials in the late evening and night prime time, so more amount of money is demonstrated.

Another example of how everyone is so rich in these TV serials. Whoever heard of middle-class housing societies where many of us live, or modest homes i should say. But our TV serial families live in palaces that we can only aspire to have. Duplex bunglows with bedrooms we can't keep a count of. Clearly, the era of humble TV serials and TV families that we can relate to (Wagle ki Duniya, Sriman Srimati, Yeh Jo Hai Zindagi and even Nukkad) are gone. Welcome to an era where everything is larger than life.

8) Festivals: I had observed in one of those earlier TV serials that the central family celebrates all the festivals almost equally with pomp & vigour. How sweet! Be it Diwali, Holi, Dashhera or even Christmas. I do not have any problems with people celebrating festivals, even I do. But it looks a bit unnatural when the way these serials show their characters celebrating festivals, it looks a bit desperate to garner eye-balls across cultures.

9) Slow motions: These are the hallmarks of all these serials. There are no excuses to inrtoduce slow motions, be it confrontations, or some "big" character entering the room, or someone opening the door only to find someone unexpected, slow motions are mostly abused here. The most frequent use of slow-motions? After a confrontation is over, the confronter turns around and walks away, all in slow motion. I have not bothered to calculate, but rough estimates suggest that a 30-minute episode can be easily told in 10 minutes if all these slow-motions are removed!

10) Best Bahu, Best Bhabhi, Best Devar and all that crap: As if all of the above is not enough, now there are award functions specifically for these type of serials. Some of the awards given to the characters that act in these serials: Best Saas, Best Bhabhi, Best Devar, Best bahu.

Having said that, hard work is hard work and there is no substitute. Even the people associated with the above work hard day and night to put together something that they believe in. And I respect that. I only wish such a lot of money is diverted into producing series with unique themes, believable characters and scenarios. After all, the audience's time is also very important.

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

As the country oldest mutual fund scheme, now US-64 Bonds, are set be redeemed, it’s tough to find an equally alternative investment. There are some that come closeThe oldest mutual fund scheme in India, Unit Trust of India (UTI)’ Unit Scheme – 64 (US-64), will soon be no more. After more than 40 years of existence, curtains will fall on the US-64 bonds that mature on 31 May 2008. UTI has already sent out letters to all bond-holders about the redemption; investors are told to submit their original certificates, take their money back and leave.

For investors like Kolkata-based, Kumaresh Mukherjee, 72 it’s the end of an era. Soon after he retired from Philips India, he invested his provident fund corpus in fixed – return instruments like company fixed deposits. An electrical engineer by profession, in 1995 he also invested Rs 12 lakh or around one-third of his retirement corpus in the erstwhile US-64. After years of above-average returns, then trapped doors and turmoil that shook the Ind…

Tired of being ignored by ICICI Bank credit cards by being left out of their premium services despite being a loyal customer, I got myself a new credit card by HDFC Bank. It's another thing that HDFC Bank promised me a gold card with a higher spending limit, but then threatened to give me a silver card. When I strongly protested to their ways, they issued me a gold card, but with a much-lower-than-promised spending limit. I think the credit card companies ought to be made more accountable through stricter laws that are widely publicised (I recently read an RBI advertisement in the paper that if a credit card company rejects your application for a credit card, it has to give the reasons in writing; I never knew that!!!) and ought to made to pay for promising one thing, but delivering something totally different. SBI Cards too chased me for a month last year and promised to give me a platinum card with a high spending limit. What I finally got was a much-watered down Gold Card with …

As a kid, the Mumbai-New Delhi Rajdhani Express used to be this legend that I dreamt often. Although train travel was an integral part of my childhood, Rajdhani remained a distant dream. A dream that only zipped past me at 120 km/hr overtime I saw it. A dream that announced it arrival from a great, great distance by the sounds of twin diesel locomotives and its generator cars at either sides of the rake. A sound that was as intimidating to rail enthusiasts like me as a Bullet motorcycle is to a biker. In those days, it used to be hauled by two diesel locomotives so that it wouldn't need to spend much time at Vadodra station changing its locomotives. One of the two diesel locos would detach itself from the train and the other one who simply haul it al the way to Delhi. When I used to go to Valsad during some of my summer holidays at my cousin's house, it was a ritual. Take a picnic basket, leave the house at sharp 6, go to the yard just before the station, position ourselves on…

About Me

Hi! I am Kayezad E. Adajania. I am a Mumbai (India)-based financial journalist specialising in mutual funds.
This blog is my voice. A vision of the world seen though my eyes. Over the course of time, I shall share with you stories (journalists refer to articles as stories) that I write for my publication - they would primararily be on mutual funds. Over and above that, I shall also share with you my experiences, thoughts and about life in general.